The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

So documenting Mirror Lake over the weekend proved challenging,  because of an event that was going on. I unfortunately didn’t get a video of it, but I feel like this youtube clip really captures the emotion of the whole thing:

It was so cold that I didn’t want to leave my room, let alone my house (granted, that’s a heating issue best left for another day).

Further complicated in my quest by my own stupidity, I wanted to experience the lake late at night and in the early morning. I have never experienced the lake in winter when no one else is around. The dead silence of a heavy snow, or the vibrant pulse of air well below freezing, are some of the most magical moments I have ever lived. I took notice of none of those characteristics as I was brutally assaulted by a metric tonne of satanic frigidity.

Life is still lived in the body. That was what I experienced. Maybe it’s a product of my seemingly accelerating ageing process, but I seem to watch idealisms morph into realisms, and my mythic journey to discover myself on the shores of Lac Miroir became an almost comical struggle for survival as I dreamt of a hot shower.

It has been an interesting season for me as I come to understand what can sort of be described as perspectivism. Pulling from a Religion and Conflict class, Neitzchean Phenomenology, and some dead guys diary that talks about the London Fire, this idea of perspective keeps coming up. Seeing the world through the body. I experienced it at Mirror Lake… as the abominable snowman repeatedly punched me in the face. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t over-analyze, I just watched this guy clear the ice in a cute little snow plow. I sat on a bench, where six months early I had sat with three friends, drunk off our recent bocce-ball championship.

I thought about summer. I adore summer, even more so because I remember winter. That’s part of perspective. Living in the body doesn’t mean that I ignore the past, but rather I can use it to shape how I see the present. Partly because I think perspective really is the only thing that can change. I doubt winter will stop hurting my body. My only responses are to bundle up like a five-year-old child and learn how to skate. The hope is that I can have a different experience of winter, and therefore eventually craft a different perspective of winter.

Or move to Mexico

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *